Mom and the Mighty Oak

Even now, I always am startled a bit when the phone rings and my sweet Aunt Elise Gifford is calling from Shreveport. For there on the phone, through some Jobsian Apple magic, the caller ID says, simply, "Mom."

I know it's Elise because she now has Giffy Marshall's old phone number, the phone number I grew up with in our family's homes on Atlantic Street and Audubon Place. Once I even went into my contact files in an attempt to make it say "Elise" whenever she called. But I didn't try too hard, because I really didn't want to delete "Mom" at all. Not that I could if I tried.

Siblings: Giffy, Alec and Elise

On this Mother's Day 2014, it's been more than two years now since Giffy drew her last breath here on planet Earth. It was February 22, 2012, when Mom went to join her forever husband Jack, her force-of-nature mother Mere and her gone-too-young sister Gloria in heaven. And Giffy's best known sibling, the long-time New Orleans broadcast newsman Alec Gifford, joined that great reunion just 13 months ago.

So now it's just Elise from that group, affectionately known to each other as Mother, Yvonette, Elise, Brother, and Glo.

Whenever Elise and I visit, our conversation inevitably is highlighted by various memories of the times this and that happened, or of something particularly memorable that someone said long ago. I used to think dwelling on such things was only for old folks. But I can't possibly be old, can I? So maybe reminiscing like that -- particularly when we laugh together over something funny -- is useful after all. Because the warm embrace I feel when we talk about Mom cannot be just my imagination.

Elise is still in Shreveport, having moved there in 2008 to help Giffy (and to have Giffy help her) as they both slowed down physically and as the Alzheimer's that eventually would take her life was beginning to cloud Giffy's mind.

Giffy and Elise in the chairs Larry Cobb and I bought for them.

Mom and Elise had several wonderful years together in The House That Jack Built on Audubon Place, and I like to think I made a small contribution to their enjoyment. One day at Sam's Club my brother-in-law Larry Cobb and I spotted some Adirondack chairs that looked like they would be perfect in that back yard. We immediately bought them and took them to the house and put them together for Giffy and Elise. And then they "tried them out" and declared them to be just right.

Over the next few years, before it was necessary for Mom to move into a 24-hour care facility, every time I'd visit her on Audubon, at some point I'd say, "Do you want to go sit out back for a few minutes?" And no matter how she felt that day, her face would brighten as she said, "Yes!"

So I'd hold her hand and we'd walk carefully together across the threshold and lawn to those chairs, waiting for us under the wide branches of a now tall and mighty oak tree Mom had planted and Mere had nurtured soon after we moved into that house in 1963. If it was warm enough, sometimes we'd even take off our shoes and nestle our feet in the cool, soft Saint Augustine grass that Jack Marshall planted there by hand nearly 50 years before.

The House, shortly after it was built in 1962. One small tree had been planted in front, and The Mighty Oak was planted in the back yard a short time later.

Mom and I would sit quietly together and look up at the branches swaying in the breeze and over at the tire swing she installed for her grandchildren, still dangling from a particularly strong limb. And we'd lean toward each other and trade stories about all the family events that had taken place at that house and in that very yard. For a few minutes, it was like she was young again, and all her children were home and Dad was about to grill some burgers and all us kids would be playing with our friends from the neighborhood. And then, as she remembered good times with those who were most important to her, Giffy would smile and exclaim, "Wonderful!"

My niece Maureen remembers a day when, even though Giffy's memory was almost completely gone, she still wanted nothing more than to sit under that tree. And how, out of the blue that day, while enjoying the shade of the great oak, Mom recited for her in a clear, strong voice a poem she had learned as a girl:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

(Trees, by Joyce Kilmer, 1913)

After Mom died, it was finally time to sell the house on Audubon Place, the home place of most of our youth. Neighbors with young children of their own bought the house and moved in. My sister Mary sent me a photo last Christmas of the house decorated for the holidays for the first time in some years, with lights outside and a tree visible through the front window. When I saw that, I felt at first a twinge of nostalgia, but mostly I felt happy. I like to think of that house full of life again, with a bustling family coming and going and enjoying that great back yard.

Today, The Mighty Oak towers over the center of the roof. (Google Earth)

I still am coming to grips with the loss of my mother. I like to think of her, alive and well and healthy and happy, sitting out in her back yard and enjoying the special place our Dad provided for her and which she cherished every day.

So the next time my phone rings and the caller ID reads "Mom," I'll smile to myself and know Elise's call also brings me a greeting from heaven. Happy Mother's Day to Giffy Marshall, and to all of our mothers!

–Tom Marshall, New York City